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Updated: June 23, 2025
One need only consider any of the novels of Dickens and the stage version that impudently bears its name to see how entirely crushed the dramatist has been by excess of material like a Tarpeia by the gifts of the enemy by difficulty in selection, and in transformation, and recollect that the product has almost always been an inconsecutive story, unintelligible to those unacquainted with the book, destitute of the peculiar atmosphere of Dickens, irritating to lovers of the novel because pet characters have been entirely suppressed or cut down nearly to nothing, and only recognisable in many cases as a version of the original on account of costumes, names, make-up, scraps of eccentric dialogue, and general trend of the mutilated story.
Gegania and Verenia, it is recorded, were the names of the first two virgins consecrated and ordained by Numa; Canuleia and Tarpeia succeeded; Servius afterwards added two, and the number of four has continued to the present time.
It happened that Tarpeius, the chief who held this fortress, had a daughter named Tarpeia, who was deeply affected by that love of finery which has caused abundant mischief since her day.
Tarpeia, the daughter of the Roman captain, left open for them a gate into the Capitoline citadel, and so they won the Capitol. In the war that followed, by the intervention of the Sabine women, the Romans and Sabines agreed to live peaceably together as citizens of one town, under Romulus and the Sabine, Tatius.
Here was placed a garrison, and Tarpeius was its commander, not the maiden Tarpeia, as some write, who make out Romulus a fool; but it was this Tarpeia, the daughter of the captain of the garrison, who betrayed the capital to the Sabines, for the sake of the golden bracelets which she saw them wearing.
Such being the outlook, what are we to do with our books? Shall we be buried under them like Tarpeia under the Sabine shields? Shall we sell and scatter them? as it is painful to see how often the books of eminent men are ruthlessly, or at least unhappily, dispersed on their decease.
The city was almost inaccessible, having for its fortress that which is now the Capitol, where a strong guard was placed, and Tarpeius their captain. But Tarpeia, daughter to the captain, coveting the golden bracelets she saw them wear, betrayed the fort into the Sabines' hands, and asked, in reward of her treachery, the things they wore on their left arms.
And so did Tatius behave towards Tarpeia, for he commanded the Sabines, in regard to their contract, not to refuse her the least part of what they wore on their left arms; and he himself first took his bracelet off his arm, and threw that, together with his buckler, at her; and all the rest following, she, being borne down and quite buried with the multitude of gold and their shields, died under the weight and pressure of them; Tarpeius also himself, being prosecuted by Romulus, was found guilty of treason, and that part of the Capitol they still call the Tarpeian Rock, from which they used to cast down malefactors.
The tale is, that Tarpeia was a Roman girl, who lived at a time in the earliest periods of the Roman history, when the city was besieged by an army from are of the neighboring nations. Besides their shields, the story is that the soldiers had golden bracelets upon their arms. They wished Tarpeia to open the gates and let them in.
The learning of a Salmasius or a Burman, unless you are its master, will be your tyrant. “Imperat aut servit;” if you can wield it with a strong arm, it is a great weapon; otherwise, Vis consili expers Mole ruit suâ. You will be overwhelmed, like Tarpeia, by the heavy wealth which you have exacted from tributary generations.
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